The really ugly face of capitalism

21 January 2009

I
remember reading a number of reports towards the end of last year of rich
countries buying land for food and water in the Global South. The land
purchases were seen as both short- and long-term investments for the future
needs of buyer countries. The
Guardian reported that countries like South
Korea, Saudi Arabia and Abu
Dhabi were buying land in Madagascar, Indonesia and the Sudan, while at
the same time sellers were eagerly ready to lease or sell their countrys
future for short-term development projects and oil leases.

A report
from Grain spells out the
problem of addressing the present and future needs of local farmers and
communities in more detail, with 100 examples of land-grabbing for agriculture:

It is not
just countries that are grabbing land; a host of corporations are in on the act
too. Many of them are familiar names from the recent financial crisis in the US and UK,
including Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. The deal in Madagascar is with the
South Korean motor and electronics company, Daewoo Logistics, who intend to buy
a million hectares on a 99 year lease. Their aim is to grow five million
tonnes of corn by 2023. One recent case is particularly disturbing. A US business
man, Philippe
Heilberg, recently gained rights to 400,000 hectares of land in Sudan from the
son of a Sudanese warlord, Paulino Matip. The report states the man is
backed by the CIA and the US State Department. The language used by Heilberg is
extremely offensive. He seems to be investing on the back of peoples suffering,
claiming he is particularly interested in countries which may soon break up:

You
have to go to the guns, this is Africa... If
you bet right on the shifting of sovereignty then you are on the ground floor.
I am constantly looking at the map and looking if there is any value.

Given
that many African countries, such as Ethiopia and
Sudan,
are unable to provide enough food for their own people, it is positively
obscene to sell off land to feed others. The encroachment by foreign governments
and multinationals onto the agricultural land and water supplies of African
communities could spell serious problems in the future. What will people do
when they are hungry but are faced with a barbed wire fence protecting the food
of the rich Western and Middle Eastern countries? Africa has
enough wars related to the exploitation of its natural mineral and oil
resources. Now the possibility of further conflict arises with this new
scramble for Africa.